There are myths of people engaging in serial bankruptcies and sometimes people file consecutive bankruptcies, but one thing debtors should not do is file concurrent bankruptcies. The overlapping cases can create needless headaches for everyone involved, especially debtors. The biggest reason not to do this is that it might end up creating a second bankruptcy …
Concurrent Bankruptcies Are a Disaster Waiting to Happen Read More »
One of the draws of Chapter 13 New York bankruptcy is the additional option for keeping an automobile: the cram-down. For cars older than 910 days, the debtor can ask the bankruptcy court to adjust the auto loan down to the car’s current market value. It’s too bad debtors can’t do this with their houses. …
Will That Clunker Last Through a Chapter 13 Plan? Read More »
Financial reformers have consistently criticized payday lending. For example, several months back the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed new rules to prevent “death-trap” payday loans, and New York State is also taking steps to regulate the lenders. New research, though, might provide additional motivation to scrutinize the industry: A paper produced by two academics …
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) was passed back in 1977, long before typical American households had so much as one computer, much less the smartphones of today. The FDCPA even discusses communications by debt collectors over telegrams. Consequently, there’s been some anxiety over collectors using social media to locate debtors or communicate with …
The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article about burgeoning graduate student debt. This phenomenon began in the last decade because of the Grad PLUS Loan Program, which covers all tuition charges at graduate and professional schools as well as living expenses. The point was to eliminate private lenders, who weren’t seen as offering fair …
It seems like yesterday when there were only a handful of options for dealing with federal student loans: consolidation, deferment, and forbearance. Then, in a matter of a few years, the government created a slew of acronymic hardship repayment programs: ICR, PSLF, IBR, and PAYE. Keeping these plans straight is difficult since they share so …
Government Proposing A New Student Loan Repayment Option: REPAYE Read More »
Recall that debtors can use irregular incomes to their advantage to avoid taking the chapter 7 means test. (In New York bankruptcy, the median family income is $49,632 for a family of one and goes up from there for each additional family member.) The linked post gives as an example an individual who was about …
Tweaking Self-Employment Income to Beat the Means Test Can Be Risky Read More »
Last year I wrote an article about how to spot loan modification scams. Some credit rehabilitation companies were offering to help people sign up for loan modifications, specifically through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Like most scams, the telltale whiff of wrongdoing was that the companies were asking for upfront fees before they did …
Home Affordable Modification Program a Dismal Failure Read More »
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran an interesting article on private student loan debts and chapter 13 bankruptcy. I wrote on this very topic back in 2013, but the article combines a few additional points about bankruptcy worth discussing. For one, as far as it goes, the article is correct: Chapter 13 can reduce monthly payments to …
Chapter 13 Should Not Be Confused With Income-Based Repayment Read More »
Chapter 13 New York bankruptcy involves plenty of paperwork, to say nothing of patience on the part of the debtor. One particular hurdle a debtor must overcome is completing the “section 1328” certificate—named for its place in the Bankruptcy Code—and submitting it on time. The discharge order depends on the debtor doing so. So what …
The Chapter 13 Debtor’s Last Hurdle: The Section 1328 Certificate Read More »
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